154 
NATURE NOTES 
a well written, well illustrated, well printed and well bound book is that, except 
in some advertisements, there is no indication of the artist’s name, save the 
initials, known only to a few. We have for some years admired the thoroughness 
of Mr. McCormick’s work ; and if occasionally, as in the frontispiece and in 
“ Oxen Ploughing,” his atmosphere is too reminiscent of his Indian drawings or 
those in “ The Tragedy of the Korosko,” never, so far as we know, has the very 
spirit of the Sussex Downs been more deftly transferred to paper than in the two 
illustrations which we are able, by the courtesy of Messrs. Longman, to repro- 
duce here, in addition to that of Jefferies’s cottage. 
Sweet Hampstead and its Associations. By Mrs. Caroline A. White. Elliot 
Stock. Price 15s. nett, to subscribers. 
In a great city, though many old buildings may survive rich in associations of 
interest in connection with personalities of the past, the great mass of shops and 
houses must necessarily be so entirely uninteresting that the others are but oases 
easily overlooked. A suburb, once remote and always somewhat secluded, thanks 
to a steep hill and a loose sandy soil, Hampstead, on the other hand, still combines 
many rural charms with associations of literary characters of former days attaching 
almost to its every’ house. . Many books have been w’ritten on this most beautiful 
John 
Evelyn. 
of the Northern Heights of London, and when a resident nearly 90 years of age 
takes up her pen to add to their number, we are less surprised at the interest 
which such a scheme could not fail to evoke, than at the mental energy displayed 
in the undertaking. Hampstead has memories of many naturalists more closely 
connected with the place than was John Evelyn; but we are glad to avail our- 
selves of an opportunity of printing a portrait of that pre-Whitean Selbornian ; 
and, though many of its most picturesque bits are now old houses, a probably 
pre historic tumulus, and that haunt of interesting aquatic plants, the Leg of 
Mutton Pond, testify to attractions other than the merely biographical. Mrs. 
White’s gossipy narrative cannot fail to prove as seductive to the lover of Hamp- 
stead as are the illustrations she has got together ; but we should have liked a 
chapter of bibliography, if not a map as well, and it is to be regretted that the 
services of some naturalist were not secured to revise the accounts of the geology 
and flora of the Heath. The pasque-flower certainly does not grow on Hamp- 
